Faith Hope Love

My father had surgery for colon cancer in the winter of 2002. As I am driving that day of surgery over the mountains into the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, a song came on the radio that mentioned these three words. They were perfect for that day. I was comforted with these words. I decided that I just had to do a sampler for my father using them. The apples represent my father and his father, too, really. They were orchardists, growing a lot of apples. Apples also represent love. The anchor represents hope. The waves or flame stitches represent faith and also, the mountains that I went over to get into that beautiful valley to get me to the town of Winchester. With the Allegheny Mountains on one side and the Blue Ridge on the other, it was a beautiful sight. The initials in the bottom right corner are my father’s and mine are on the right. As a kid, my initials were the same as my father’s and I thought that was just so cool. It would have looked pretty cool with JEB in both right and left corners of the sampler. My father enjoyed having this sampler hanging on the wall by his favorite chair for several years.